Shooting Star
by BCBoo
Summary: Songfic staring Nobby and the stars. Nobby is depressed one night and muses over the stars. Oneshot


This is my first ever song-fic so be nice. The song is 'Shooting Star' from the Disney movie Hercules, sung by Boyzone, so they own the song. Nobby belongs to Terry Pratchett, and so do any other characters I may have mentioned.

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Nobby Nobbs, Watchman, was sitting on a wall, depressed. It was about midnight. A few years ago he would be ring his bell shouting alls well, but not anymore. 

Today had been a normal day. He'd wondered around Ankh-Morpork watching out for trouble, he'd 'borrowed' some money from the Watch house collection tin and people had talked about how horrible he looked while standing right behind him. One woman had walked up to him and asked him how he could let himself be seen in public looking like that.

No one seems to think too much of me here

And they're glad to tell it to my face

And they're right I'm not supposed to be here

I'm completely out of place

Somehow there has got to be a reason

Evening as I try to think it through

There's a bolt from the blue...

Usually Nobby just let it go. People said things like that to him all the time, but only once. This woman has been saying it every time she saw him, which was at lest once a day. The only reason she could still walk and hadn't felt the steel end of his boot was because she was, after all, a lady. Nobby sighed and lit him self a dog end which he took from behind his grubby ear. Some of the other Watchmen had grown accustomed to Nobby's bad looks and terrible smell, but they still changed attitude when Nobby turned up. Vimes would suddenly straighten up as if to get away from the smell by making him self taller, Cheery tended not to make eye contact with him, Angua often had to hold her nose as the smell was amplified for her, Carrot was too polite about it, he wouldn't flinch or any thing which made Nobby feel worse for some reason. Colon was the only one who seemed not to be fazed by him. Nobby sighed again and looked up.

And I see a shooting star

Set apart from all the rest

While the other stars are standing still

He's on a quest...

Every night this shooting star

Darts across the twilight sky

Cause he knows he doesn't quite fit in

And he's longing to know why.

Nobby had seen shooting stars before, sometimes it was just some magic escaping from the Unseen University, but they still looked pretty. Tonight, for some reason, this one seemed special. 

Nobby often wondered what the point was of shooting stars. He'd heard you could make wishes on them, or it was someone's soul comes back to the Disc. He'd even heard someone say it was a bad omen and meant death. Nobby saw them as…well he wasn't quite sure what, but they meant something.

I feel so much better when it's nighttime

That's when I can sort of disappear

When the sun has set and it's the right time

For pretending I'm not here

Sometimes I just stare up to the heavens

Wondering if the answer is inside

That's when I see the light...

The scream of someone being inhumed brought Nobby's attention away from the sky and back to the Disc. He jumped off the wall to make sure everything was going ok, his boots making a half hearted click on the pavement. Around the corner there was an Assassin leaving a receipt carefully pinned to the jacket of an ex-human. The Assassin finished the job and strolled off into the night; completely oblivious to the fact Nobby was watching. Nobby had the ability to hide himself away during the day, but at night it was even easier. After the coast was clear Nobby went to see who the unfortunate victim was. It was a young man who looked familiar. It was the lad who joined the Watch today, Nobby realised. Poor lad, first day and he's already dead, he was in his uniform and everything.

Sitting on the wall again, Nobby thought about when he first joined the Watch. Everyone avoided him back then, but he didn't care. The one reason Nobby had chosen the Night Watch was the night part. If he worked at night no one would see him. Since the Watch's had combined the insults had become more frequent, but not from the other Watchmen, from the civilians. Because he had to work in the day and night people, dwarfs and everything else saw him. 

Long gone were the days when he could get paid to stay away from someone, now they had to grin and bare it, but they didn't grin. Another shooting star made Nobby's little head looked sky wards again.

Of myself that shooting star

On his way to who knows where

He's the one like all the stars

He outshines up there...

And that solitary star

Is an awful lot like me

On an endless search through time and space

For a place that won't seem wrong.

This one was a lot brighter than the last one. And it seemed to be slower, as if planning where to land or disappear or whatever it is shooting stars do after they've shot. Nobby wondered if there was a star heaven. He knew that the stars died, he'd over heard some people talking about it once. He then wondered if shooting stars went there, if shooting stars were out casts, un-wanted, maybe that's why they're always moving, to try and find somewhere they could be accepted. Nobby wanted to find somewhere he could be accepted, Ankh-Morpork sure as hell didn't want him. But he'd heard about other countries, they'd probably be even worse. It then occurred to Nobby that Angua was a shooting star. She'd searched for somewhere to call home. But unlike him, she'd found it. 'Maybe one day I'll go searching' He thought to him self. 

If we both hang on for long enough

If we both somehow are strong enough

We'll found out where we belong...

After 2 minute of thinking these thoughts, Nobby felt an unexplainable connection with the shooting star. He looked up at the sky, only to see the star had gone. This made Nobby feel alone again. But in a strange way it also made him determined. If the star can carry on searching, not giving up, then so could Nobby!

Nobby jumped off the wall again, but this time with determination. The steel on his boots clicked on the pavement whole-heartedly. A large smile was on his grimy little face and there was a twinkle in his eyes. He all but skipped off into the night, ready to face the world, or Ankh-Morpork at lest.

Every night this shooting star

Darts across the twilight sky

Cause he knows he doesn't quite fit in

And he's longing to know why...


End file.
